Botaey flat bed press



' (No Model.) 3'Sheets-Sheet 1.

J. L. 00X. ROTARY PLAT BED PRESS.

Patented Mar..29, 1898.

Joseph L. 00x y W ufltorneys (No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet 2.

J. L. 00X. ROTARY PLAT BED PRESS. N0. 601,497. Patented Mar. 29, 1898.

. /l. l w/M E w (No Model.) 3 She'ets--Sheet 3.,

J. L. 00X. ROTARY FLAT BEDPRESS.

No. 601,497. Patented Mar. 29,1898.

kI/ls aft-Lorne a.

' ATENT FFIQE.

JOSEPH L. COX, OF BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN, ASSIGNOR TO THE DUPLEX PRINTING PRESS COMPANY, OF SAME PLACE.

ROTARY FLAT-BED PRESS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 601,497, dated March 29, 1898.

Application filed March 11, 1893.

To all whom it may concern.-

Beit known that I, JOSEPH L. COX, of Battle Creek, in the county of Calhoun and State of Michigan, have invented certain new and usef ul Improvements in Rotary Flat-Bed Presses; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying draw ings, and to the letters of reference marked thereon, which form part of this specification.

This invention is an improvement in printing machinery; and its objects are, first, to produce a rapid printing-press employing reciprocating forms of type,electrotypes, blocks, or other objects from which the impression is to be taken, continuously-traveling rotary impression gripper-cylinders which carry the sheets to be imprinted over the forms, and

traveling inking-rollers; second, to provide improved inking mechanism for such press; third, to provide mechanism for feeding such press with sheets out directly from a roll of paper, and, fourth and principally, to provide an improved duplex press by which the sheets may be imprinted on both sides or perfected during their passage through the press.

The invention consists in the novel construction and combination of parts hereinafter described and claimed.

In the drawings, Figure 1 represents a side elevation of the duplex or perfecting press.

- Fig. 2 is a longitudinal diagrammatical sect-ion of the same. Figs. 3 and 4 are detail views illustrating the transfer of sheets from one traveling impression-cylinder to the other. Fig. 5 is a vertical transverse sectional View on line 5 5, Fig. 1. Fig. 6 is a detail illustrating the mechanism for shifting the inkdis'tributing sections. Fig. 7 is an enlarged detail sectional view of a drum.

In the drawings similar letters of reference indicate like parts. I

In Fig. 2 of the drawings, A A designate two stationary cylindrical drums lying side by sideat a proper distance apart and having their peripheries accurately finished. At their ends are bearing-flanges a, which project slightly above the face of the drum, and at one side of these bearing-flanges a are formed or secured annular racks or gears a,

hereinafter referred to. These drums have Serial No. 465,619. (No model.)

interior bracing Webs, spokes, or flanges by which their peripheries or shells are strengthened and braced, as indicated in the drawings, or other suitable bracings or stiffenings, and *5 5 they have elongated hollow trunnions A on their ends, which are fixed in proper bearings on the main frame of the machine, so that the drums are rigidly and fixedly mounted in the frame, as indicated in the drawings. Through the hollow trunnions of the drums extend shafts B B, driven as hereinafter described. A longitudinal opening A is made in the upper portion of each drum to accommodate type-beds O C, one in each drum, which beds are vertically movable and are guided in their movements by the sides of the openings or suitable guide a in the-drum, as indicated in the drawings, or in other suitable manner, so that their reciprocating movements up and down will be regular and accurate and lateral vibration of the bed prevented. v

The beds have depending brackets c on their under sides, in which are mounted frictionrollers 13, which run upon the peripheries of cams b b on shafts B, which are so arranged that the beds will be raised and lowered in and during the proper time or times. Springs C may be placed beneath the beds to lift or assist in lifting the same, being placed on rods 80 C fixed in the drum and playingthrough eyes c attached to the beds, as indicated in Fig. 2; but as the mechanism for raising and lowering the beds can be readily varied by mechanics 1 do not confine myself to the particular mechanism herein described, nor to the particular construction of the beds or drums herein described.

D D are spider-frames journaled on the trunnions A of each drum, between the ends of each drum and the side frames of the press. The spider-frames at the ends of the same drum are connected together by stay-rods D, as indicated in the drawings, or in other suitable manner, so that they revolve simultaneously and alike. These spider-frames have, as shown, four equidistant arms d, which are slotted to receive journal-boxes e, in which are journaled the shafts or trunnions of impression gripper-cylinders E E of suitable size and of ordinary or any preferred construction. These cylinders I refer to hereinafter as simply cylinders E or E. The cylinders E are grouped around drum A, and cylinders E around drum A, as shown in drawings. These cylinders have bearing flanges or treads e at their ends which run upon the bearing-flanges of the drums hereinbefore described, and also have gears e which mesh with the gears on the ends of the drums and insure the exact and proper rotary movement of the cylinders as they are traveled around the drums by the rotation of the spider-frames.

Shafts B B may be rotated as follows: Pinions B are keyed to the outer ends of the shafts B and mesh with pinions B on stubshafts B journaled in the side frames below the trunnions A On the inner ends-of the stub-shafts B are pinions B, which are driven by crown-gears D on the spider-frames D, as indicated in Fig. 5.

By properly arranging the gearing the shafts B will be rotated simultaneously with the movement of cylinders E E around the drums and should be rotated once for each cylinder E or Ethat is, four times during each rotation of the spider-frames, as the frames carry four impression-cylinders -and the cams I) should be so arranged that the beds will be once raised and lowered during the travel of a cylinder over the bed, so as to cause the cylinder to produce an impression on the type.

It will be particularly noticed that in this press the beds are not stationary, that they reciprocate, and that the cylinders travel around the drum in a circular orbit and are not deflected from or toward the axial lines of the drum. Now, then, as the cylinders travel over the beds they travel through an arc-shaped path, and hence rise at one side of the bed and descend at the other side, being more elevated when they are centrally over the beds than when at either side thereof.

Therefore it is necessary that the type-beds should be so actuated that as the cylinders come thereover at the rising side the bed is also raised and the type-forms thereon kept in contact with the impression-cylinder during its upward movement and are lowered gradually with the impression-cylinder as it descends at the opposite side of the bed. The cams can be readily calculated to produce this movement of the bed and keep the forms thereon in contact with the cylinders as they travel thereover. This movement of the bed brings it back to original position as the impression-cylinder leaves it, so that it is ready to coact with the succeeding cylinder. From this it will be understood that the beds have a continuous toand-fro or up-and-down reciprocating movement, while the cylinders have a continuous rotary and orbital movement, and during the taking of the impressions the coacting cylinder and bed move to gether, so far as concerns their variation in position from a horizontal plane. By this action of parts the beds are brought back to normal position during and at or just before the finish of the impression by one cylinder and in position to be inked by the traveling inking-rollers hereinafter described, and then immediately coact with a succeeding impression-cylinder, so that the operations of printing by successive cylinders moving constantly over reciprocating beds can be accomplished with great rapidity.

The spider-frames are rotated by means of large gears D formed thereon or aflixed thereto, the gears on adjoining spiders at the same side of the machine intermeshing, so as to impart a positive simultaneous but opposite similar rotary movement to the spiders at the ends of the opposite drums, which will therefore revolve the cylinders around the respective drums, as indicated by the arrows in Fig. 2.

The gears D on spiders D mesh with small gears f on a cross-shaft F, journaled in the frame and to which power is applied in any suitable manner to drive the press.

It will be noted that cylinders E arerotated over drum A toward drum A and that cylinders E are rotated over drum A toward drum A. The drums are so placed in relation to each other that as the cylinders E E travel along their respective orbits they approach each other as they begin to descend at the inner sides of the drums and nearly meet, so that their peripheries barely avoid contact, coming within about a sixteenth of an inch at their nearest points of travel, which is when they are in line with the aXes of the drums or spiders. They then separate and travel around the peripheries of the drums until they begin to again descend.

The sheets are fed to the cylinders E successively as they ascend at the outer side of the drum A and at such a point that the sheet will be properly imprinted by the type on the bed 0 as the cylinder E travels thereover. Then as the cylinder E descends with the imprinted sheet X it meets a descending cylinder E on drum A, and as they come nearest together the gripping-fingers of cylinder E close upon the edge of the sheet X, and at the same time the gripper-fingers of cylinder E release the edge of such sheet, as indicated in Fig. 3, and as the cylinders continue their travel and rotation the sheet is transferred' from cylinder E to E, as indicated in Fig. 4. The sheet is taken around the drum A by cylinder E and imprinted by the form on bed 0, and as cylinder E rotates over bed 0' the imprinted sheet is delivered to the strippercylinder G, which is j ournaled in bearings directly over drum A and in such position that as the cylinders E pass over bed 0 the collecting or stripper cylinder G rotates and its gripping-fingers catch the edge of the sheet being imprinted on bed 0, and at the same time the gripping-fingers of the cylinder E producing the impression release the sheet, which is consequently taken off by strippercylinder G, as indicated in Fig. 2.

IIC

'anism for stripping and delivering the imprinted sheets may be employed-as, for instance, a flat delivery device, such as a fly ?--which will lay the sheets upon a table, as in ordinary sheet cylinder-presses.

The sheets of paper may be fed to the cylinder by hand or may be fed in by machinery, as may be found desirable by the pressbuilder. I prefer to employ a mechanism which will cut the sheets from a web and feed them into a press, as indicated in the drawings. As I have represented the machine a web of paper W is led from a paper-roll P, between two cutting-rolls H H, by which it is severed into sheets X of the proper length. The severed sheets X are carried by endless tapes I, running over rollers l; i to the side of drum A, in position to deliver the sheets to the cylinder E as they ascend, as indicated in Fig. 2. Rollers 11 i are driven by gearing from the shaft of the upper cutting-roll H, as indicated in Fig. 2, or in any other convenient manner, the gearing being so calculated that these tapes move somewhat faster than the peripheral speed of the cutting-rolls, so that they will carry the sheet toward drum A at a speed equal to the peripheral speed of a cylinder E plus its travel or orbital movement around drum A.

In order to facilitate the gripping of the sheet by the fingers on cylinders E, a guide or guides J are interposed between the tapes and drum, as shown in Fig. 2, said guide having its edge next the drum A or projections on its edge slightly upturned, so that the edge of the sheet is presented in such position that it will be readily grasped by the gripping-fingers of a passing cylinder E.

The cutting-rolls may be driven by gearing from the main shaft, as indicated in Fig. 1, the gearing being so calculated that the cylinders will cut one sheet of paper for every cylinder E. As shown, there would be four sheets cut from the web during the time required to rotate one cylinder E aroundthe drum or during one rotation of the spiderframes. Any suitable mechanism for severing the sheets may be employed to enable sheets of the proper length to be severed from the web and forwarded to the impression-cylinders E, as described.

The ink is supplied to the fountains by means of traveling inking-rollers R R, which run upon the peripheries of the drums between the bearer-flan ges and distribute the ink upon the surface of the drums, by which thorough dissemination of the ink is obtained. The shafts of the ink-rollers are connected to the spider-frames by any suitable means, so that the rollers are rotated by said frames and successively rolled over the form of type on the type-bed to ink the same. As shown, the inkrollers are arranged in pairs on each drum, one pair between adjoining cylinders and in front of each cylinder. Each pair of rollers are connected to the drum by a hanger-rod K, which plays through perforated studs on the frames, as indicated in Fig. 1, and is controlled by a spring 70, which tends to draw the rollers toward the axis of the drum and keeps them in continual contact therewith except when they contact the type-forms, as will be readily understood by builders of printing machinery. The ink-rollers ink the forms just in advance of the impression-'cyL inder, and consequently the beds will begin to rise before the ink-rollers pass thereoff when the rollers move at the same speed as the impression cylinders. Consequently I employ bearer-cams 0 secured to the off side of the beds, as indicated in Figs. 2 and 3, and by which the ink-rollers are lowered onto the periphery of the drum without jar. The bearer-cams are raised and lowered by the beds.

The ink-rollers receive the ink from fountains L, one in each drum, located inside the drum at the off side of the type-beds, as shown in Fig. 2.

The fountain-rollers Z partially occupy longitudinal slots a in the drums, and their peripheries project sufficiently through said slots to be contacted by the ink-rollers R and supply ink thereto. If desired, longitudinal sections of the drum periphery may be removed and replaced by slabs A dressed to conform to the peripheral contour of the drum.

These slabs project slightly beyond the ends of the drum and are contacted alternately at opposite ends by cam-surfaces d on the inner faces of thespider-frames, as indicated in Fig. 6, by which reciprocating movements are imparted to such slabs, resulting in a more thorough dissemination and distribution of the ink.

The gripper-fingers of cylinders E, E, and G are applied and released at the proper times by the well-known gripper-actuating devices employed in ordinary cylinder sheetprinting machines, and therefore do not need any detailed description herein; but other arrangements of gripper-actuating mechanism may be employed, if found desirable.

A single-acting press'i. e., one adapted to print on but one side of a sheetmay be readily constructed in accordance withmy inven tion by simply omitting one drum and its coacting spider-frame, cylinders, and ink-rollers, the feed devices and stripping-roller being employed in connection with a single drum and coacting cylinders.

The output of the machine depends, of course, upon the number of impression-cyl- IIC fountain can be readily cleansed and replenished.

Having described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters 'Patent thereon, is

1. The combination of a drum, a reciprocating type-bed, and a cylinder traveling around said drum and over said bed, substantially as and for the purpose described.

2. The combination of a drum, a reciprocating type-bed, and a cylinder traveling around said drum and over said bed, with a paper Web and mechanism for severing sheets therefrom and delivering said sheets to said cylinder, substantially as and for the purpose described.

. 3. The combination of a drum, a reciprocating type-bed, and a cylinder traveling around said drum and over said bed, and mechanism for stripping the imprinted sheet from the cylinder, substantially as specified.

4:. The combination of a drum, a reciprocating type-bed, and a cylinder traveling around said drum and over said bed, with a paper web and mechanism for severing sheets therefrom and delivering said sheets to said cylinder, and mechanism for stripping the imprinted sheet from the cylinder, substantially as described.

5. The combination of a stationary drum, a reciprocating type-bed therein, and a plurality of impression-cylinders traveling successively around the said drum and over said bed, and mechanism for raising and lowering said bed during the passage of each cylinder thereover, substantially as set forth.

6. The combination of a stationary drum, a reciprocating type-bed therein, and a plurality of impression-cylinders traveling'successively around the said drum and over said bed, and mechanism for raising and lowering said bed during the passage of each cylinder thereover, with mechanism for stripping the imprinted sheets from the cylinders successively, substantially as described.

7. The combination of a stationary drum, a reciprocating type-bed therein, and a plurality of impression-cylinders traveling successively around the said drum and over said bed, and mechanism for raising and lowering said bed during the passage of each cylinder thereover,-with mechanism for severing sheets of paper from a web and delivering them to the cylinders successively, substantially as and for the purpose specified.

8. The combination of a stationary drum,

a reciprocating type-bed therein, and a plurality of impression-cylinders traveling suecessively around the said drum and over said bed, and mechanism for raising and lowering said bed during the passage of each cylinder thereover, with mechanism for severing sheets of paper from a Web and delivering them to the cylinders successively, with mechanism for stripping the imprinted sheets from the cylinders successively, substantially as set forth.

9. The combination in a perfecting-press of two drums arranged side by side, a reciprocating type-bed in each drum and impression-cylinders traveling around said drums respectively in opposite directions, substantially as and for the purpose described.

10. The combination in a perfecting-press of two drums arranged side by side, a reciprocating type-bed in each drum and impression gripper-cylinders traveling around said drums respectively in opposite directions, and mechanism for severing sheets from a web and delivering said sheets to the cylinder on one drum from which cylinder it is automatically transferred to the cylinder on the other drum after it is imprinted when the cylinders are at the nearest points of their orbits, substantially as described.

11. The combination in a perfecting-press of two drums arranged side by side, a reciprocating type-bed in each drum and impression gripper-cylinders traveling around said drums respectively in opposite directions, with mechanism for severing sheets from a web and delivering said sheets to the cylinder 011 one drum from which cylinder it is type-bed in each drum, and impression-cylinders respectively rotated around said drums in opposite directions and traveling in an unbroken curved path, substantially as specified.

14. The combination of the" stationary drum, the type-bed therein, a traveling impression-cylinder and the rotating shaft, and cams for reciprocating said bed, substantially as described. 1

15. The combination of the stationary drum, the type-bed therein, and the rotating shaft, and cams for reciprocating said bed, with impression-cylinders and inking-rollers and mechanism for rotating them around the drum and over the bed, substantially as and for the purpose described.

16. The combination of the stationary drum, the ink-fountain therein, and vibrating ink-distributing sections in and forming part of the periphery of the drum, and the rotating gears or wheels having cams on their side faces for vibrating said sections with inking-rollers rotated around said drum, and contacting with the fountain-roller and said sections, substantially as described.

17. The combination of the stationary drum, the vibrating bed therein, the rotating shaft, and cams thereon for raising and lowering the bed; the traveling cylinders, the rotating. frames for carrying said cylinders around the drum, and gearing between said frames and said shaft, substantially as and for the purpose described.

18. The combination of the drum, the reciprocating type-bed therein, and mechanism for reciprocating said bed, with the cylinders, and ink-rollers and mechanism for rotating them around said drum and over said bed, and the bearer-cams connected to said beds for the ink-rollers to run off upon, substantially as set forth.

19. The combination of the drum, the reciprocating type-bed therein, and mechanism for reciprocating said bed, with the cylinders and ink-rollers and mechanism for rotating them around said drum and over said bed,

and mechanism for severing sheets of paper from a web and delivering them to said cylinders, and devices for stripping the imprinted sheets therefrom, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

20. The combinationwith a cylinder travcling in a continually-curved orbit of a reciprocating type-bed within the orbit, substantially as described.

21. The combination with a cylinder traveling in an orbit of a reciprocating type-bed within the orbit, and means for reciprocating said type-bed, so that the'cylinder will produce impressions from forms thereon, substantially as specified.

22. The combination of a traveling grippercylinder and means for moving said cylinder in an unbroken or undeviating circular orbit, with a reciprocating type-bed within the orbit, and inking mechanism, substantially as set forth.

23. The combination of a traveling grippercylinder and means for moving said cylinder in an unbroken or undeviating circular orbit, with a type-b ed within the orbit, and inking mechanism, and mechanism for reciprocating said type-bed, substantially as and for the purpose set forth. V In testimony that I claim the foregoing a my own I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

JOSEPH L. GOX. Witnesses:

O. E. Foo'rE, H. J. J OHNSON. 

